In the Quarter | Page 2

and moreover you're too easily scared. No matter what happens this time, no knocking under!"
"Oh, I'm not going to knock under. No more is Clifford, it seems," Rex added with a laugh, as Clifford threw down his cue and took a step of the devil's quadrille.
"Oh! Elliott!" he crowed, "what's the matter with you?"
Elliott turned and punched a sleepy waiter in the ribs.
"Emile -- two bocks!"
The waiter jumped up and rubbed his eyes. "What is it, monsieur?" he snapped.
Elliott repeated the order and they strolled off toward a table. As Clifford came lounging by, Carleton said, "I hear you lead with a number one at the Salon."
"Right, I'm the first to be fired."
"He's calm now," said Elliott, "but you should have seen him yesterday when the green card came."
"Well, yes. I discoursed a little in several languages."
"After he had used up his English profanity, he called the Jury names in French, German and Spanish. The German stuck, but came out at last like a cork out of a bottle -- "
"Or a bung out of a barrel."
"These comparisons are as offensive as they are unjust," said Clifford.
"Quite so," said Braith. "Here's the waiter with your beer."
"What number did you get, Braith?" asked Rhodes, who couldn't keep his mind off the subject and made no pretense of trying.
"Three," answered Braith.
There was a howl, and all began to talk at once.
"There's justice for you!" "No justice for Americans!" "Serves us right for our tariff!" "Are Frenchmen going to give us all the advantages of their schools and honors besides while we do all we can to keep their pictures out of our markets?"
"No, we don't, either! Tariff only keeps out the sweepings of the studios -- "
"If there were no duty on pictures the States would be flooded with trash."
"Take it off!" cried one.
"Make it higher!" shouted another.
"Idiots!" growled Rhodes. "Let 'em flood the country with bad work as well as good. It will educate the people, and the day will come when all good work will stand an equal chance -- be it French or be it American."
"True," said Clifford, "Let's all have a bock. Where's Rex?"
But Gethryn had slipped out in the confusion. Quitting the Café des écoles, he sauntered across the street, and turning through the Rue de Vaugirard, entered the rue Monsieur le Prince. He crossed the dim courtyard of his h?tel, and taking a key and a candle from the lodge of the Concierge, started to mount the six flights to his bedroom and studio. He felt irritable and fagged, and it did not make matters better when he found, on reaching his own door, that he had taken the wrong key. Nor did it ease his mind to fling the key over the banisters into the silent stone hallway below. He leaned sulkily over the railing and listened to it ring and clink down into the darkness, and then, with a brief but vigorous word, he turned and forced in his door with a crash. Two bull pups which had flown at him with portentous growls and yelps of menace now gamboled idiotically about him, writhing with anticipation of caresses, and a gray and scarlet parrot, rudely awakened, launched forth upon a musical effort resembling the song of a rusty cart-wheel.
"Oh, you infernal bird!" murmured the master, lighting his candle with one hand and fondling the pups with the other. "There, there, puppies, run away!" he added, rolling the ecstatic pups into a sort of dog divan, where they curled themselves down at last and subsided with squirms and wriggles, gurgling affection.
Gethryn lighted a lamp and then a cigarette. Then, blowing out the candle, he sat down with a sigh. His eyes fell on the parrot. It annoyed him that the parrot should immediately turn over and look at him upside down. It also annoyed him that "Satan," an evil-looking raven, was evidently preparing to descend from his perch and worry "Mrs Gummidge."
"Mrs Gummidge" was the name Clifford had given to a large sad-eyed white tabby who now lay dozing upon a panther skin.
"Satan!" said Gethryn. The bird checked his sinister preparations and eyed his master. "Don't," said the young man.
Satan weighed his chances and came to the conclusion that he could swoop down, nip Mrs Gummidge, and get back to his bust of Pallas without being caught. He tried it, but his master was too quick for him, and foiled, he lay sullenly in Gethryn's hands, his two long claws projecting helplessly between the brown fists of his master.
"Oh, you fiend!" muttered Rex, taking him toward a wicker basket, which he hated. "Solitary confinement for you, my boy."
"Double, double, toil and trouble," croaked the parrot.
Gethryn started nervously and shut him inside the cage, a regal gilt structure with "Shakespeare" printed over the door. Then, replacing